The present inventions relates to cooking appliances, and particularly to cooking appliances which include pivotal cooking plates for cooking varied types of food articles, e.g., for grilling steaks, making waffles, warming buns, preparing pizzas, etc.
Cooking appliances of the foregoing type generally include a pair of cooking plates pivotally mounted to each other from an open position for permitting the introduction and removal of the food articles to be cooked, to a closed position for cooking the food articles. In such cooking appliances, the pair of cooking plates are generally pivotally mounted to each other by a slideable hinge to permit the cooking plates to accommodate the food article between them during the cooking operation. Such cooking appliances are commonly used for grilling stakes, hamburgers, and the like, involving direct contact of the food articles by both cooking plates. Examples of cooking appliances of this type are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,606,905, 6,016,741 and 6,192,788.
The cooking appliance described in the latter patent, U.S. Pat. No. 6,192,788, also provides an arrangement for supporting one cooking plate in a parallel spaced relationship with respect to the other, i.e. to provide only one-surface contact with the food article to be cooked. The cooking appliance is thus converted to a sort of oven, in which one surface of the food article being cooked is in contact with a hot surface, whereas the other surface is spaced from the other hot surface. Such a cooking appliance is therefore useful for preparing pizzas or other gratinated dishes formed with a crust on its outer surface. When using the cooking appliance for the latter purposes, it is important to firmly support one cooking plate in parallel spaced relationship with respect to the other. The above-US patent does this by providing a projection and a seat on the two cooking plates at the pivotal ends thereof having the slideable hinge. However, such an arrangement provides a cantilever support for the two cooking plates, and therefore is not only unreliable for maintaining the two plates in a space parallel relationship, but is also subject to tremendous strains which can deform them particularly over a period of time.
Another problem in the use of such cooking appliances particularly for grilling purposes is the disposing of drippings from the food article during a grilling operation.